More detail than you'll ever want to know about my wedding cake project

If you follow this blog regularly, then you already know that I volunteered to make a wedding cake for Karen and Mason, who were married on Saturday. And if you follow me on Twitter, then you already know how it turned out. But in case you are interested, here's the entire story. Go ahead and use the restroom now, and grab a beverage while you're up, because this is a long one...

Karen and Mason planned their wedding to be one casual, fun party and weren't too concerned about the details. I was given free reign to do pretty much whatever I wanted with the cake, which was nice because I was able to stick with what I was comfortable with. With this being my first baking project of this magnitude, the last thing I wanted to do was attempt something that was beyond my ability and increase my chance of something going wrong. So I decided right off to keep everything as simple as possible while still producing a beautiful cake.

While keeping it simple, I also wanted to offer some variety of flavors because not everyone likes the same thing. So the bottom 14 inch tier was made out of Rice Krispie treats, because I thought that sounded fun and easy. The 12 inch tier was a yellow vanilla cake with a lemon buttercream filling, and the 10 and 8 inch tiers were both chocolate cake with brandied chocolate ganache. The entire cake would be iced in Italian buttercream. (Look for recipes on my food blog soon).

I also decided to not stack the tiers as is traditionally done with wedding cakes. I'll get to that someday, but this time it seemed to like too much on top of everything else. Karen purchased a cake stand so the cake would still be beautifully presented and it sure made my life easier.

I did so much research for this project. I must have spent hours and hours reading food blogs, forums, and cookbooks. The Internet came in extremely handy, and I don't know how I could have made it through without all the information I found online. I was extremely prepared and knew exactly how every step was going to go, and how to ensure it went the way I wanted it.

So that's my preparation, now let me tell you about the execution.

The weekend before the big day was spent baking all of the layers. I'm kind of on a budget right now so I only had one pan for each tier, meaning I'd have to bake each layer individually. It took much longer than I anticipated so I'm glad I had a whole weekend to work with. After they were all baked I coated each layer with simple syrup to help lock in the moisture, put them each on a cardboard cake board, quadruple wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer. On Thursday, two days before the wedding, I took the cakes out of the freezer to thaw overnight in their wrappings.

Friday morning (it was a state holiday, thank goodness) I made the Rice Krispie tier. I made six batches of the treats using the recipe on the cereal box. I took each batch and pressed it into my 14 inch cake pan that I lined with greased plastic wrap. I let it sit for several hours to firm up and then I turned it out onto a cake board. So easy!

Next I made my crumb coat of American buttercream to mask each tier and seal in the crumbs. I also filled each tier, the vanilla with lemon flavored American buttercream and the chocolate with the chocolate ganache I had made several weeks before and frozen to keep it fresh. After each tier was masked, they went into the fridge to stay cold. The cakes don't need to be refrigerated at this point, but it firms them up and makes them easier to work with and transport.

Late Friday night, after a day-before-the-wedding family party, I stayed up to make the Italian buttercream. This recipe was probably most technical aspect of my entire project, but thankfully I'd had enough practice with it and never have had any problems. It's tricky, but definitely worth the extra effort. The icing is so much more lighter and sophisticated than your typical butter and powdered sugar icings, and very fitting for a wedding.

The day of the wedding wasn't especially hectic since I'd planned ahead and had almost everything done. All that was left to do was frost the cake and get it to the wedding which was later that afternoon. It took a while to get the icing smooth and beautiful, but I was very pleased with how it all turned out. The next part, transporting it to the wedding site which was fifty miles away, had me extremely nervous. I had Steve turn the car on fifteen minutes before we planned on leaving so that it would be nice and cool inside, and then I packaged all the tiers into cake boxes and did all I could to ensure they wouldn't budge inside the car. And they didn't.

The wedding ceremony was happening at four but the cake wouldn't be needed until seven for the reception. The whole affair was outside, and it was hot. I stored and put the finishing touches on the cake inside the camping trailer the bride and groom had the foresight to bring. I think I freaked out for about fifteen minutes when I was under some time pressure, but other than that the whole thing went swimmingly. And it turned out better than I could even have possibly imagined.

I got so many wonderful compliments. Everyone was really nice about it and Karen and Mason seemed very happy, and so I was happy. I even had a passerby who called herself a professional baker compliment me on how smooth I was able to get my buttercream. I couldn't stop smiling.

And it tasted as good as it looked! The chocolate I think was the best tier as well as the favorite, so that went very quickly. One thing I was concerned about was that since I was the baker, I would end up being the server, and that's exactly what happened. That was a little complicated, but Steve was a very good assistant and we got it taken care of.

Before I knew it, the day was over and my part was done. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally. It was a long day, a long weekend, a long couple of weeks. But was it worth it? Absolutely! I was expecting disaster, I suppose, because I was completely blown away by how well everything went. And I would definitely do it again, although now I know why people charge so much for these things. When all is said and done I think I spent about 30 hours and $125 (although there were some one-time purchases that I won't have again).

Wow, this is incredibly long. To sum up quickly, I made a wedding cake. It was a lot of effort, but I had a great time and it ended up being a great experience. Maybe there's a career here after all. Feel free to recommend me to your friends!